The Night Before
by waveform
Summary: Memories, warm milk and a mother/daughter talk on the eve of Kim's wedding. Part of the Fast Track universe.


_Disney owns the characters; I'm just taking them for a test drive._

_--_

It was well after two in the morning when Dr. Anne Possible descended the stairs of her home. She knew her daughter had been having a difficult time sleeping as her wedding day approached, so when Anne awoke in the middle of the night, she decided to go up to the loft bedroom that Kim was using for the first time in over a year. Her bed was empty.

As Anne went down the stairs, she couldn't help but look at the pictures hanging on the wall, many of them depicting her daughter and soon to be son-in-law at various stages in their lives. Anne was profoundly glad that the Stoppables had many of the same pictures the Possibles did, and that Wade Load could make duplicates of them, otherwise those pictures would have been lost forever after their house was destroyed by a Lorwardian walker. Anne remembered looking at those same pictures three years prior when Kim was about to go to her junior prom with a boy named Erik. She looked at them again with a great feeling of joy when, later that same night after saving the world again from Dr. Drakken, her daughter announced that she would be returning to the prom with her new boyfriend; a boyfriend who wasn't Erik.

_The look of pure joy on Kimmie's face when she told us,_ Anne thought. She remembered the look of grim determination on her daughter's face when she came back from Bueno Nacho with Ron after disabling the activation signal for the Diablo robots. Drakken had abducted Erik, and she was going to go save him. When Kim came back from Bueno Nacho Headquarters after the mission was over and told her parents what had happened, Anne wanted to hunt down Drew Lipsky and rip him apart with her bare hands.

"It's okay, Mom," Kim had said. "Yeah, he played me. But because of that, I found something better." Kim got a dreamy look on her face. "I need your help, Mom. I need to get my hair fixed and get dressed before Ron gets back."

"Ron? Why would he be coming back this late?"

"Because I want to go back to the prom with my boyfriend," Kim happily said. That's when Anne realized what had happened. Ron had finally come clean about his feelings, and Kim had done the same. _And now he's going to be my son-in-law,_ Anne thought._ What am I saying? He's been my son since they were in pre-k._

Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, Anne noticed a light coming from the kitchen. When she opened the door she saw her eldest child sitting at the kitchen table in her normal nighttime attire of black pajama pants and one of Ron's Middleton High football jerseys, nursing a glass of warm milk and staring at a photograph of herself, and the man she would be marrying in a matter of hours, when they were at their junior prom. In the picture Kim was wearing a blue dress with a scorched hem, and Ron was wearing an out of date, ill fitting tux that was, ironically, the same shade of blue as Kim's dress.

Kim was oblivious to her mother's presence; she was lost in her memories. She was remembering the hurt she felt when Erik showed his true colors, and the sensation of her heart lifting when Ron uttered the words "Out there, in here." But mostly, Kim remembered the scooter ride back to Middleton from Bueno Nacho Headquarters. "So," she had said to Ron over the private Kimmunicator frequency that linked their crash helmets as she guided the rocket powered two wheeler down the freeway. "How long?"

"KP?"

"How long have you....._liked _me liked me?"

"Oh. That." Ron sighed. He knew he was going to have this conversation eventually, he just didn't know it would be on the back of his own scooter. "I dunno. At least since the Moodulator date. Probably before."

"And yet you dumped me."

"You weren't yourself, Kim," he protested.

Had he not been sitting behind her on the scooter, she would have put a finger to his lips to shush him. "It's okay, Ron. I understand. It couldn't have been easy."

"It wasn't," he admitted.

"Seeing me with Erik couldn't have been easy, either." Kim was feeling really lousy about the way she had ignored her best friend of twelve years for a pretty face she had just met.

"I was gonna drop by the prom tonight," Ron said. "I was gonna tell you how I felt. But I chickened out and went to Bueno Nacho instead."

"A ferociously good thing, too," Kim pointed out. "If you hadn't, Drakken would've won. Just like he would've won if you hadn't said anything in that storeroom." Ron had made his big confession, now it was her turn. "Do you remember how I acted when Yori was here?"

"Yeah," Ron said. "Y'know, I had to ask Monique what 'jealling' meant."

Kim smiled a little. "I was jealling so hard," she admitted. "I thought Yori was taking you away from me. And then when she kissed you.......that really got me tweaked."

"Why? It was just a peck on the cheek."

"She kissed _my Ron!_ And like I said, I thought she was trying to take you away from me!" Kim took a deep breath. "The reason I went ga ga over you when the Moodulator was set to love mode was because there were already feelings there. I admit it, Ron, I've been crushing on you for a while, too. But I didn't want to admit it to myself. I didn't want to take the risk of losing you. You're my best friend and have been for so long. I don't want to lose that. Ever."

"Me either, Kim." She could tell by Ron's voice that he thought this was the "Let's Just Be Friends Speech."

"But some risks are worth taking." That took Ron a little off guard.

"KP, are you saying what I think you're saying?" As luck would have it, they had just pulled up in front of Kim's house so she could finally look Ron in those gorgeous brown eyes of his.

Kim removed her helmet and took Ron's hands in hers. "I think we've been afraid of ruining what we have for too long. And I know I've let Bonnie's stupid 'Food Chain' garbage screw with me for way too long. But we almost ruined it all anyway! I almost ruined everything by pushing you away, and you almost ruined everything by not saying anything. I am so done with that. So here it is." Kim took a deep breath. "I _like _you like you, Ron Stoppable. And I was hoping that you'd do me the honor of going to the prom with me as my date. And," Kim's face turned a deep crimson, "I was hoping that you'd agree to be my boyfriend."

"KP-" Ron started to say.

"This isn't a rebound thing, Ron," Kim blurted out, afraid of rejection. "Like I said, I've been crushing on you for a while, and you admitted to crushing on me. This is real. We're real. It's just.....I want us to have a chance."

"All I have ready is my dad's blue tux."

"Perfect!" Kim exclaimed. "It matches my dress. So, that's a yes?" Kim voice was a little shaky, as if she was afraid of being turned down.

"To both questions, KP," Ron happily said, pulling her into a crushing embrace that she happily melted into.

And that was the start of the best thing in Kim Possible's life. _He's going to be my husband today,_ Kim thought as she wiped a stray tear from her eye. She finally noticed her mother standing in the doorway. "You knew all along that this would happen," she said.

"I hoped it would." Anne took a seat beside her daughter. "After a while all the hugging and the standing in close proximity went beyond 'just friends.' You really should try to get some sleep, Kimmie."

"I've been trying, Mom," Kim replied. "I haven't had a good night's sleep in days. I've kept poor Ron up with all the tossing and turning. And since he could sleep through an earthquake, that's really saying something."

"It's just nerves, honey," Anne said.

"And the fact that Ron's not here," Kim sadly added. "I miss him right now, even though he's only a few houses down. And before you say anything, Mom, I know that he can't see me before the wedding. It still tanks, though."

"Believe me, Kimmie, I've been there. But after today, you'll be together for the rest of your lives."

Kim leaned over to hug her mother. "Life's strange, isn't it? I mean, I met my future husband when we were just little kids. That's like, so the cartoon cliche."

Anne pulled away to look her daughter in the eyes. "Like anything in your life has been normal?"

That brought a smile to Kim's face. "And I wouldn't have it any other way. My husband's motto is 'Never be Normal.' Maybe that'll be our version of 'anything's possible for a Possible.'"

"He's not your husband yet, you know," Anne teased.

"He is here, Mom," Kim said, putting her hand over her heart. "All that's left is the formality and the paperwork."

"I am so happy for you, honey," Anne said, pulling her daughter into another hug. "You and Ron deserve this. Now come on, Mrs. Stoppable. You need to get some sleep. We don't want you falling asleep during your own wedding, now do we?"

Anne picked up the photograph after Kim left the table. That picture showed the start of the best thing to happen in Kim Possible's life. But Anne knew it was only the beginning. The best was yet to come.

--

_Coming next week: The wedding of Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable. Be here for "We Are Gathered Here Today Chapter One: Pre-wedding Jitters."_


End file.
